Stephen Maximum was one of the few unlucky American bands that ever came out in the late 80s and didn't have the chance to taste some sweet success. As soon as they signed to Enigma label and started recording in 1989, the company went bankrupt and the tape was gathering dust in the shelf until Sunset made "Just For Kicks" saw the daylight in 2002. The quartet played the exact same style to what most bands played in the late 80s, a good time party rock with couple of lovey ballads.

If I want to summarize their musical style, I would say the early Poison stirred with Pretty Boy Floyd with a drop of Motley Crue. Jim Gray's vocal style reminded me of Mark Slaughter blended with Steve Summers.

Comprised of 14 tracks, "Just For Kicks" offered a tasty hard glam attack such as the title track, "Candie Sweet", "Skin To Skin", and the lusty GNR fuelled chorus, "Strictly Sexual". "Lil Liar" and "Missing You" are two songs that will be constantly played in heaven if God made a melodic party up there. Maximum also threw couple of great acoustical ballads, "Pennies From Heaven" and "Here Comes Those Tears", both had a big potential of becoming radio hits if those were released in the 80s. The album smartly closed with a wonderful light-guitar-strumming "Paint Me A Picture".

Too bad the sound production is a bit disappointing and I'm feeling like listening to an old dusty tape, and not a digitalized CD, but overall, this is one hell of an album you should not miss!